Karolina Laquerquist, A Junior Entrepreneur major and Tennis player at Grove City College. Back home in Pittsburgh during the summertime, she herself is a tennis coach. She began when she was 15 years old. Her neighbor asked her if she could help get her little boy doing something other than having his nose stuck in his science books. Karolina began to coach this little boy and begin to bring out an athletic side of him that neither he or his mom knew he had before. From working with this boy, word spread and Karolina began to get more and more clients. Karolina now has 2 dozen private clients. She teaches on weekdays and on saturdays in the summer. Karolina has learned two important things while running this business. The first one is, the importance of mentors. She gives the credit to her high school coach as the one who taught her how to teach. The second thing that Karolina said she has learned is the importance of taking the Sabbath off. In Karolina’s words: “You need to be able to have a day to rejuvenate so that you can continue to do what you love”. Karolina has turned clients down because of this belief. Karolina’s price strategy is to keep her prices low. She begins each summer with special promotions in May to get clients in, and then also special promotions at the end of August so that she can continue to see her kids up until she has to come back to school. Her advertising for the business started out with email marketing, but now is mostly word of mouth. Besides coaching these kids, Karolina also coaches at a Country Club. What drives Karolina is wanting to give these kids more passion. She wants to bring out the confidence in these kids, and take it to the next level. If you know of any young child who is seeking tennis lessons for the summer in Pittsburgh, look Karolina up on mygcc!
Author Archive for Kate Albers
Grace started doing graphic design her freshman year of college when she was running low on cash and needed to have Christmas presents for 8 people in her family. She decided to try designing some posters for each person in her family according to an activity they did or a quote that they liked. It turned out that Grace really enjoyed the process of designing and her posters came out really well! Grace did not have any formal training in graphic design and she never read any books about it. She began to design more things for the Grove City Theatre department as well as design things for other offices on campus. Last fall, Grace took her first class with Nate Mucha. She credits Nate Mucha with motivating her to pursue design, but she also states that he helped her understand what a difficult craft it is. Grace has improved her design skills by practicing the craft itself, reading lots of books, following blogs, and looking at design around her. She is learning to develop her own style and her own preferences. Over the summer, Grace took an unpaid internship with a local business doing their graphic design. Through that internship, Grace really learned how to design better and became familiar with design software. She definitely saw that she improved. Grace began to gain traction in the Grove City community as a person who was experienced in design. With that, she was contacted by her friend to design her wedding invitations. She was also asked to design items for Grove City’s branch of the CCO. Grace now has a design portfolio website and a wedding invitations website. Check them both out!
http://graceleuenberger.wix.com/portfolio
http://www.weddingwire.com/biz/grace-leuenberger-designs-grove-city/bcac9cd057c73900.html
Zach was intrigued with graphic design and branding his freshman year when he took a Dr. Powell’s Principles of Marketing class. He was transfixed with the power of branding and the messaging that visual and graphic designs can communicate to a given audience. After a project in that class where they had to design a logo for the product that they wanted to invent, Zach realized that he really liked brand design and strategic planning. Later on, he took a communications course with Dr. Mobley called “Visual Communications” where they worked on a lot of poster design. This was the class that really kick started his desire to pursue branding and graphic design further and Zach was given the tools by the school in order to learn and teach himself the basics of design. Zach has taught himself the majority of his graphic design and branding skills through reading a lot of design books from page layout design to typography. Zach began to hone in on his skills, and in his junior year, he took a class called Visual Design with Nate Mucha, where he learned more about Swiss design. Swiss design is Zach’s inspiration behind a lot of his design style. Along the way, groups on campus began to ask Zach to make logos or posters for them and he gladly did it free of charge in order to build his portfolio and experience. After a marketing strategy and graphic design internship with Wendell August, the desire to pursue branding and design as a side business grew to what it is now. Throughout his time, Zach has branded many blogs and companies along the east coast. He is currently working with 3 different clients on creating brand strategies, logos, and overall image design that will help the companies convey the message they want to send their clients in the clearest and simplest way possible. To quote Zach’s favorite quote:
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” -Leonardo Da Vinci
Justine Staniszewski and her friend Marina Barnett were always passionate about baking. Inspired by the show DC Cupcakes, the girls decided to begin their own cupcake business. They created a facebook page. They began business in their church. People began to start ordering goodies from them. Their first order ever was for a wedding shower. The girls then began catering to baby showers and birthday parties. Their business grew by word of mouth. In September of 2014 the girls catered for their 4th wedding. The girls bake out of home, and work with customers to come pick up their cupcakes. Disastrous Desserts includes, but is certainty not limited to: A variety or specialty Cupcakes (with a large variety of flavors and designs desired), as well as other desserts such as: Whoopie Pies, Cake Pops, Chocolate-Covered & Peanut Butter Covered Oreos and many other desserts.
Check out Justine and Marina’s Facebook Page!
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Disastrous-Desserts/109426585820059?sk=photos_stream
At the age of 14, Doherty began making jams from his grandmother’s recipes. As the word got out, he began receiving more orders than he had time to fill. He dropped out of school and rented a 200-person factory a few days each month. In 2007, a high-end U.K. supermarket approached Doherty about selling his jams leading to his products gaining shelf space in 184 stores. By 2007, his company had $750,000 in sales. Since then, his company has continued to grow throughout Europe.
T.J. Mousetis started walk in love. during the summer of 2005. His only goal was to raise enough money to travel to Russia on a misson trip with his Dad. T.J. purchased 100 blue shirts, printed them with the phrase “walk in love”, and sold them to friends, family, church members. Even a random stranger or two bought shirts online via T.J.’s Myspace page! Due to the success of the original walk in love. shirt, T.J. has been able to return to Russia several times since his first trip. But it only took one trip to Russia to give T.J. his passion for designing and selling t-shirts. By 2008 walk in love. was a company with multiple designs and a demand to “get bigger!” Knowing that expansion for walk in love. needed to happen quickly and creatively, T.J. decided to start that process by getting professional photos of his shirts. So naturally, he Facebooked a cute girl from church who was a photographer. She agreed to do free photos in exchange for a few walk in love. t-shirts. That photographer was Brooke – and a year later T.J. and Brooke tied the knot. Upon combining their creative powers, T.J. and Brooke dove head first into making walk in love. a full-time company and business – with a new website, dozens of new shirts and styles, and a seasonal kiosk at their local mall. Through the love, support and financial donations of hundreds of people, walk in love. opened it’s first brick-and-mortar retail store in April of 2011.
The desire of walk in love has always been, and will always be, to remind people that God loves them more than they can imagine. And because of that love, we too can love others – no strings attached.
Today, friends, I am going to share about Meagan Nicole Photography. Meagan and I both graduated from the same high school. Meagan was always passionate about photography growing up. She always has a camera in her hand and a photo-op in mind. After graduating from high school in 2009, she was able to pursue her passion by doing a few internships and taking a few classes at a local community college. Meagan launched her business “Meagan Nicole Photography” in 2012. Meagan has a unique eye not just for photography but the knack she has for props and special scenery to enhance the photoshoot experience. There are many photographers back where I come from in Lancaster, PA. Instead of having a “competitive attitude” about these other photographers, Meagan has a beautiful vision that I wanted to share about her attitude about her business:
Meagans vision is to see all the various photographers band together, and create one bigger, more effective force – a team in a sense, and accomplish our passions + goals more effectively and give our customers a unique, unbeatable experience. We each have a different eye, and a fresh perspective. But we each have similar knowledge. Why not all come under one team, and fortify one another. Meagan’s vision as the “boss” is to empower and not control.
Meagan has a passion to live life to the fullest and to use her abilities to serve others and serve the Lord and leave an impact on this world. Meagan personally took my senior pictures in 2012. I highly recommend you take some time to browse over her lovely website. It is definitely worth your time.
Hart Main is a 14-year old that came up with the idea of manly scented candles when he was teasing his sister about the girly scented ones she was selling for a school fundraiser. Although she didn’t expect him to fully pursue the manly scented candles idea himself, he did, and the idea has turned into a nationwide success. Main put in an initial investment of $100, his parents put in $200, and they all worked together to develop the candles as a group. The available scents include: Campfire, Bacon, Sawdust, Fresh Cut Grass, Grandpa’s Pipe and more. Today, ManCans candles are in over 60 stores across the country and have sold about 9,000 units. Main will stick with selling ManCans’ inventory until he has to shift his focus back into school in the fall. I mean, he is only 14 after all. I think this is a cute and inspiring story of a young entrepreneur. It just goes to show that you can never be too young to begin a business on your own. Also this story is an example of the random moments that life changing ideas can pop into your head. Go ManCan!
This is a really cool story about a young entrepreneur that I wanted to share with everybody. Sarah Gehman, a good friend who I grew up knowing in high school, and ALSO my roommate’s sister, began this business in 2012. Sarah is a missionary with the world’s biggest Christian mission organization, YWAM. Her job title is “Social media/marketing manager and photographer for the Ekballo Project. She is currently based out of the YWAM base is Kona, Hawaii. Sarah raises all her own money and one of the biggest things that she did to do this was through Sweaters Anonymous. It all began with her love of shopping at thrift stores. One day she realized that that she should try to turn this small obsession into something practical and decided that this could be a way to raise money for her YWAM trips. How this business works is that Sarah travels to various thrift stores and purchases used and sometimes new sweaters. Instead of regularly pricing the sweaters, she lists them on her website; http://sweatersanonymous.com/ and instead of pricing each sweater individually, she asks for a donation, so whatever a person is willing to give she will take. It is definitely a unique way to run a business. Sarah has been extremely successful, and she gives all of the credit to the Lord. Sarah quotes: “God is such a good God, and he doesn’t call us to do something that he won’t provide for”. To give an example of Sarah’s success, she has sold over 100 sweaters and has made 3,000 thousand dollars. Sarah has her own personal website, as well as a facebook page that she advertises these sweaters on. Check out Sarah’s Sweaters!
This young entrepreneur began with a passion and a love for crocheting. Katie Knight began crocheting in 8th grade. She did not start creating scarfs until her junior year of high school. She began by making scarfs to give to her friends, and eventually ran out of people to give scarfs to. In the spring of 2014, she began thinking of starting a business with these scarfs. Katie started up her Etsy store in July of 2014, and called it, Janella’s Accessories Store. Her scarfs are classified as Infinity Scarfs, and each one has its own unique personality and pattern. Katie is also my roommate, and she made me one of these scarfs last year. It is warm and comfortable and cute. I personally believe that the scarf making business is a big one, and people are very interested in purchasing products that are hand crafted and that are made with good material. I believe that with time and dedication, Janella’s Accessories store could become a thriving business. 
